Tre's Blog

Status: Complete
Type: Game Modification, Automation
Technology: Lua, Minecraft, Computer Craft

This is a case of simulated automation using video games as a tool to make scenarios to support making your own versions of technology that might otherwise be unfeasible. In this case I’m using Minecraft to support the automation of machinery/mechanical processes. Using a mod called Computer Craft I can have agents in the world called Turtles (which maybe a reference to some classic ways of teaching certain programming concepts). Turtles can do a lot of things that players can do, such as manipulate inventories, mine items, craft items, etc. making them very useful if you’re able to understand and support their abilities.

In this case I have two different programs designed for them. One was originally supposed to take input from a chest and divide charcoal between two other chests while redirecting anything else to another chest for further processing. This was defunct pretty quickly since I later implemented my second program to alleviate the need for the first.

My second program was designed to take input from a chest, and craft an item from the input, then move all the excess into another chest. This was simple since the thing I needed to craft required one component item spread across the crafting grid (which is a surprisingly common case) this was easy to do by simply looping through an attempt to take items from the source until I had nine of them minimum, dividing it amongst the nine squares, and then crafting the item before sending everything into the output chest. If only things were that easy in real life!

Join me next time when I take everything to a level far too complicated by making a NodeJS program interface with the turtles to automate my warehouse management for me, and another to manage mining dangerous long tunnels that feed into the warehouse system.

Program One

state = 0 -- 0 means the turtle is facing the intake chest
-- 1 is the clean output
-- 2 is fuel
 
function chance()
    return math.floor(math.random()*2) ==1
end
 
 
function left()
    state = state +1
    turtle.turnLeft()
end
 
function right()
    state = state - 1
    turtle.turnRight()
end
 
function eat()
    while state ~=0
    do
        if state > 0 then
            right()
        else
            left()
        end
    end
    while(turtle.getItemDetail(1) == nil)
    do
        turtle.suck()
    end
    distribute()
end
 
function distribute()
    if turtle.getItemDetail(1).name == "minecraft:coal" then
        good = chance()
        if good then
            left()
            turtle.drop()
            right()
        else
            left()
            left()
            turtle.drop()
            right()
            right()
        end
    else
        if turtle.getItemDetail().name == "minecraft:log" then
            turtle.dropUp()
        else
        left()
        turtle.drop()
        right()
    end
    end
    eat()
end
eat()

Program 2

state = 0
 
function canCraft() 
    turtle.select(1)
    return turtle.getItemCount() >= 9
end
 
 
 
function clearSlots()
    for i=2,16,1
    do
        if turtle.getItemCount(i) ~= 0 then
            turtle.select(i)
            turtle.dropUp()
        end
    end
    turtle.select(1)
end
 
function placeCrafting()
    count = math.floor(turtle.getItemCount() /9)
    print("There should be " .. count .. " rubber crafted")
    turtle.transferTo(2,count)
    turtle.transferTo(3,count)
    turtle.transferTo(5,count)
    turtle.transferTo(6,count)
    turtle.transferTo(7,count)
    turtle.transferTo(9,count)
    turtle.transferTo(10,count)
    turtle.transferTo(11,count)
end
 
function craft()
    print("Crafting!")
    clearSlots()
    placeCrafting()
    turtle.select(16)
    turtle.craft()
    turtle.dropUp()
    turtle.select(1)
end
 
while (state == 0)
do
 if canCraft() == false then
    turtle.suck()
    else
        craft()
    end
end